"Economic hit men": Western terrorists who endanger global security

"Remember right after the 9/11 attacks many Americans were asking: 'Why do they hate us?' What was even sillier was when neocon pundits and war hawks attempted to answer that supremely naive question. They hate us because they envy our 'freedom,' we were told.

"The first time I heard the question 'Why do they hate us?' I was reminded of an encounter with a Palestinian shopkeeper in the Old City of Jerusalem. He [said] 'Good people, bad government. I've been thinking about what he said ever since. What I've come to realize is that, on one hand, the shopkeeper was expressing his faith in the common decency of American people. On the other, he was pointing to our collective tendency to fall for the rhetoric of our leaders in justifying morally indefensible policies and the fundamental disconnect between ordinary Americans' values and the decisions made by the leaders we elect.

"This week's phrase: ''Economic hit man' or EHM. 'Economic hit men are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. They funnel money from the World Bank, USAID, and other 'aid' organizations into coffers of huge corporations and the pockets of a few wealthy families who control the planet's natural resources.

"'Their tools include fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and murder. They play a game as old as empire, but one that has taken on new and terrifying dimensions during this time of globalization. I should know; I was an EHM.' That's how John Perkins begins his book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man(2004).